But I did like their snickering reaction to Obama's speech. It is a bit passive aggressive but when he gets a pass on all his gaffes and media protects him over everything, you have to up your antics to get noticed.

Well I was laughing out loud while listening to the speech on NPR at work. Of course I work in a noisy industrial environment, and I doubt that anyone noticed, so It probably wasn't insulting. But really, if I hear something that is genuinely funny I laugh. If he was unaware that he was jumping the shark tank then he is seriously out of touch, and his handlers have a responsibility to reel him in a bit.

and yes I saw the piece about NPR altering the speech transcript. Probably done by an underling, and I can see that it might be corrected, but the original altered transcript is the one we will see quoted by the left from here on out.

Steve Austin said..."Obama has fallen and he can't get up. His only chance is to do a major conservative pivot."

Right! His only chance is to push the left into getting off their asses and fielding a primary candidate against him instead of just whining about him. That worked out well for Carter, right?

Obama's best chance for reelection is to look like he's a sensible guy trying to do something, paint the GOP as obstructing his agenda, and spend a billion dollars turning our nominee into the fright of the night in the mind of independents. Then he wins if a majority of independents buy the narrative that even though the economy is spluttering, he's trying to fix it but those evil rethuglicans won't let him and by the way their guy will take away your social security donchaknow? The one thing that he can't afford to do is demoralize or even split his own party.

Nothing racist here: It’s a busy Monday, as one Republican official already got busted doing racist anti-Michelle Obama stuff on the Facebook, and now we’re learning about some super-funny racist emails sent out by a Tennessee GOP legislative staffer for Republican state senator Diane Black. Thanks to Wonkette for the twist of humor.

@Roesch, will there ever come a point where lefties like you catch up to the rest of us on race relations?

You see the rest of us believe that African-Americans should be judged by the content of their character, as Martin Luther King, Jr., demanded, and not the color of their skin. But what comes across to me is that you and other lefties really do believe that African-American are dumber than whites, Asians, and Latinos, and that all of us need to make allowances for the poor dears.

And we won't. We've gone way beyond that, and we're getting impatient waiting for you to catch up to the rest of us.

What is not funny is that Obama is taking poorly conceived and ill-defined policy positions to "position" himself as the "adult" (for political gain at our expense).

Obama's political gambit is cynical and insulting. Snickering is probably the most benign response warranted under the circumstances. And it is the least of the shame that he should endure for underestimating the intelligence, resilience, and the potential of the American people.

The sooner we wean ourselves from dependence on government largesse fueled by deficit spending, the sooner we can rebound

a plan that you should pass right away.You should pass this jobs plan right away.Pass this jobs bill -- pass this jobs bill, Pass this jobs bill, You should pass it right away. Pass this jobs bill, You should pass it right away.Pass this jobs bill, Pass this bill, Pass this jobs bill, Pass this bill,Pass this jobs bill,pass it again -- right away.Pass this jobs bill, pass this bill right away. pass this jobs plan You should pass it.

now we’re learning about some super-funny racist emails sent out by a Tennessee GOP legislative staffer for Republican state senator Diane Black.

That happened two years ago and you're just finding out about it? Haven't you been attending current events class? How does that relate to this? It doesn't. But, you have no foundation to stand on, so it's back to the old liberal standby, yell "Racist!!"

It wouldn't work in the House Chamber, but enjoying a drink at home to celebrate a laugh line would be more practical. Just a sip, though, not a whole shot. You don't want to be knee-walking drunk by the end of the speech.

In particular, the insane decision to turn the once-routine procedure of raising the debt ceiling (Lofgren notes it was done 87 times since WWII) into a political crisis revealed that the GOP party mainstream had sunk to the level of terrorism – holding our economic system hostage in exchange for political concessions.

This was a form of violence...

Yes, opposing a piece of legislation in Congress is a form of violence.

It’s a busy Monday, as one Republican official already got busted doing racist anti-Michelle Obama stuff on the Facebook, and now we’re learning about some super-funny racist emails sent out by a Tennessee GOP legislative staffer for Republican state senator Diane Black.

That's from 2009 idiot, and it had no impact then. Keep trying and say hello to tar baby!

Personally I found Obama's relentless gimmicky use of "pass the bill right away" to be mocking MLK's style...something you'd see on SNL actually.

What I'm wondering is what's up with the editing out of the union violence in Washington State, no arrests by the police, yet?, and making the connection between Hoffa's "we're your army and ready to march" comments? No MSM covering this at all, O'Reilly on FOX did, but othewise little on their news programs. Why the silence? You have 100's of organized union members attacking and taking guards hostage, destroying property, defying judges order to cease and desist and no one makes the connection to Hoffa's words and Obama's refusal to denounce. Hmmmm

So, the Republicans openly threatened to allow the full faith and credit of the US government to go into default. They brought us to the brink and precipitated huge sell offs in the market and reduced consumer confidence and investment.

And you guys claim that is only routine opposition to a bill?

What they did was highly unusual and showed how Republicans openly want to destroy government to empower their corporate patrons.

This budget plan, by contrast, will by 1997 cut $140 billion in that year alone from the deficit, a real spending cut, a real revenue increase, a real deficit reduction, using the independent numbers of the Congressional Budget Office. [Laughter] Well, you can laugh, my fellow Republicans, but I'll point out that the Congressional Budget Office was normally more conservative in what was going to happen and closer to right than previous Presidents have been.

How this gets to be the Republicans fault when both sides refuse to budge is easy enough to understand.

We all understand, we really do, that it was the moral responsibility of the Republicans to immediately abandon their constituent's demands that we reduce the debt instead of merely raise the debt and in the end the reason our credit rating got lowered was because we still held too much debt.

Then he wins if a majority of independents buy the narrative that even though the economy is spluttering, he's trying to fix it but those evil rethuglicans won't let him and by the way their guy will take away your social security donchaknow?

Choosing a strategy that involves the assumption that independents are dupes would be beyond delusional. In today's political climate, it would be suicidal, which is why Obama and the current crop of Democrats will choose it.

The fact that President Clinton chose differently and won re-election must be ignored. And it will be.

You gotta give Saul a point there. Ridicule is one of the best ways of destroying your opponent. Think of the 2nd debate between Reagan and Mondale in 1984. The response on the question of age was so good, it had Mondale laughing (as if he was saying "Clearly I am a joke, and I don't belong on the stage with this guy".) A great deal of Rush Limbaugh's brilliance is his ridicule of opponents and critics. Everyone has a smile on their face and the opponent/critic is left a piece of toast. It is beautiful. I'm just surprised it its not used more often in modern politics.

When judging politicians, I see two broad criteria against which to draw conclusions; policy positions, and personal demeanor. Of course, left and right would not agree on the former, but I would hope the latter would produce some agreement. To chortle snidely at the remarks of a sitting president during an open session of Congress is behavior I would consider rude and boorish no matter the partisan stripe of the offender. For conservatives not to disparage this behavior, in turn, shows more about their own standards of honor than it says anything about the candidate. His supporters should be ashamed of Congressman Ryan.

Taibbi:But for the new GOP, compromise of any kind defeats their central purpose, which is political totale krieg. This party's entire reason for being is conflict and aggression. There is no underlying patriotic instinct to find middle ground with the rest of us, because the party doesn't have a vision for society that includes anyone outside the tent.

At what point have we ever, as a nation, has this idea that we were supposed to be respectful of the President?

And what hairs are you splitting? That it's the noble and solemn houses of congress and they're supposed to never be rude *in the building* but when the multitude of dem congresspersons are flagrantly rude to the president that they did it someplace else? Or maybe it's the rudeness to his face? Is it rude to be rude in the same room with the president and therefore being outrageous behind his back is *not* rude?

jimspice said...To chortle snidely at the remarks of a sitting president during an open session of Congress is behavior I would consider rude and boorish no matter the partisan stripe of the offender. For conservatives not to disparage this behavior, in turn, shows more about their own standards of honor than it says anything about the candidate. His supporters should be ashamed of Congressman Ryan.

You forget, conveniently, that Bush was booed at the State of the Union speech by Democrats, which is just hunky-dory with you because you have no standards, morals or ethics, thus no sense of shame either.

Obama said in front of Congress that his health care bill would not cover illegal aliens. And when Joe Wilson yelled out "You lie", he was eviscerated by the left.

But looky here, there's a new regulation in ObamaCare that says everybody gets covered and no one can be asked about their immigration status.

Garage, you live in Wisconsin. You have seen daily protests; said protesters taking over the Capitol, violent rhetoric, shouting down a 14 year old speaker. You've seen legislators run away and refuse to fulfill their responsibilities. You've seen protesters in their aim to shout down the governor disrupt a ceremony honoring the developmentally delayed. You've seen all of that and more, and you have the audacity to say this.

Shouting Thomas wrote:So, we can dismiss Taibbi and Omega as fucking liars.

I disagree. Liars they may be, but that's giving them far too much credit. Alpha Liberal and his ilk are merely insignificant. Three years ago he became an Obama camp follower hoping to glean a few scraps of meaning to attach to his worthless life. Now that the Obama star has fallen to earth AlphaLib is in a blind panic. He's liable to say or do anything that might salvage something from the wreckage that passes for intellect on the Left

garage mahal said..."Taibbi:But for the new GOP, compromise of any kind defeats their central purpose, which is political totale krieg. This party's entire reason for being is conflict and aggression. There is no underlying patriotic instinct to find middle ground with the rest of us, because the party doesn't have a vision for society that includes anyone outside the tent."

It's this "compromising" with the left crap for the last 50 years that's gotten in this fiscal nightmare. Since actual conservatives had no power until the Tea Parties, the elected Republicans have always been the equivalent of RINOs and to compromise they had to move left. The country was dragged inexorably to the left because of this.

It reminds me of what one of the labor scions said a long time ago - "Negotiating is a give and take process. You give, and we take."

Why don't "Progressives" ever have to "compromise" and do things like reduce actual expenditures (not budget projections), or cut the size of existing government. Then the "compromising" would have actually been done in both directions. Instead, Obama has already folded the first trillion in failed stimulus into every future year's budget, and now he wants even more failed stimulus.

Now half the stuff the government does would have been considered Marxist by those in the 1950's.

There is no room left to compromise anymore. Going off the fiscal cliff in slow motion still gets you to the bottom just as quickly once gravity takes hold.

The worldview and mindsets of the two sides are now so far apart that there can no longer even be rational discussion between them anymore, let alone "compromise".

I see lots of violence coming, and soon. Obama and the unions and the Black Caucus have already been stoking up the racial hatred and class warfare.

PhilWalker called the National Guard to his side as he announced a scorched earth assault on the state that nobody knew was coming. Wisconsinites were protesting against that ripping to shreads agenda on public ed, unions, and dozens of public policies that took decades to establish. What the fuck are fighting and dying for anyway? What are we protecting back home? The GOP today wants to destroy all of it. In my view Wisconsin was much too polite about it.

My guess is they will alter O's plan here and there, but eventually pass it wih O's name still firmly attached.

These are the possibilities:

(1)They pass the bill. a. Things get better b. Things get worse

(2)They don't pass the bill. a. Things get better b. Things get worse

(1)a. is not likely, but if it happens, Republicans will get some credit. (1)b. is, I feel the most likely scenario. If it happens, it was Obama's plan and he's a three-time loser. (2)a. is not likely given O's policies, but if it happens, O gets credit just for being president. (2)b. would be political disaster for Republicans. They will not risk this.

Also, garage. You've failed to explain what Walker has done that is bad.

He has to make government fit within the available budget. Government at all levels needs the authority to make do with their available funds.

So they pushed back on unions a bit, since unions were dictating to government too much of what had to be spent and where it had to be spent.

It's pretty clear that in the private sector unions have a history of glorying in the destruction of businesses. The relationship is antagonistic, even when it's not destructive or the business deserves it. Us vs. them.

And somehow public employee unions are not in an antagonistic relationship to their employer, the government? They *are* the government? Pushing back on unions is destroying government?

How did that weird shift happen?

Decide. Are unions in an antagonistic relationship to their employers? Keep them in line. Protect the workers. Yes? They ought to be. Employees need to band together so they aren't taken advantage of or abused. So who is it they are the balance for? If they *are* the government, then they're just in charge of giving themselves better stuff with no check on them at all.

And unlike private companies, the government can't be put out of business.

And claiming that making union membership voluntary is anti-democracy or secret ballots are anti-democracy doesn't become more true by saying it louder.

sorepaw said..."[AlphaLiberal said that 'the GOP wants complete control, no Presidents but GOP Presidents, no policies but GOP policies, no voice for the non-GOP parts of the country.'] Pure projection."

No it isn't. I do want that—not "a one-party dictatorship," of course, but certainly one-party dominance. Doesn't any rational person want their views to prevail? If I didn't think my policy views were right, I'd change them. What kind of idiot deliberately supports policies that she thinks are a net minus? Now, in the real world, Synova is right that we usually have to compromise, but there are two important caveats to that. First, in order to compromise, you first have to know what you believe. And second, compromise isn't a goal in itself. When their party wants to treat cancer with sugar pills and I want to treat it with chemo and radio, I'm willing to compromise and skip the radio if they have enough political power to make that a condition of treating at all, but in an ideal world, I'd hope that people who think sugar pills treat cancer wouldn't have sufficient power to force a compromise.

Do I want people like Alpha to have a voice? Well, I don't want to silence them, but I wouldn't be saddened if they shut up voluntarily.

What chaps me is this notion that compromise doesn't include the things you don't like or even strongly oppose.

It's like the misuse of the word "tolerance." "Tolerance" has come to mean "agree with me." That's just wrong.

And what garage is saying about compromise and who ought to do it is just the same. It's not compromise if it is agreement! You can only compromise if it's a disagreement, if you really do think that the other guy is *wrong*.

Conservatives have been complaining for a long time now that when a liberal says "compromise" they mean "do it my way." I think that's close to right. And garage strengthens that when he says you don't compromise with someone who is wrong. If you don't think they are wrong, then you're not compromising, you're agreeing.

The only way good can overcome evil (ignorance) is not to defeat it but to convert it.

When you use ridicule you may anger the opposition but how does that help your cause? You should be trying to convince and convert them. When you insult them you only harden their stance. You will never convert the opposition leaders who are most probably only interested in personal power and not truth. However their followers can be converted if you take the right approach - respect them and their ideas but expalain why those ideas are wrong, harmful, counterproductive, or whatever.

Polarizing society buy using rehtoric, ridicule, sarcasm, and insults is not going to lead to a solution it is only going to make the problems worse.